“Are you awake?” The voice sounded as though it were a thousand measures away.
With the greatest effort, Nedim forced his eyes to focus until he could see the bright eyes and pleasant face that belonged to the sultry voice. She stared down at him, unblinking, somehow drawing him into conscious with her will alone. Nedim blinked once, just enough to clear his eyes and see what held back her mane of flame-colored hair: two red horns twisting up from her forehead.
“Is something wrong?” she asked with an amused tone.
Nedim pushed and kicked his way back from her until he felt relatively safe she wasn’t pursuing him across the dune. Except for the beastlike horns, she looked like the concubine of an exotic ruler. Dressed impractically for the desert, she wore the scarves of a harim dancer and her limbs were adorned with baubles: gold and silver, rings and chains, and precious stones. She was a beautiful creature and all the more dangerous for it.
“Who are you?” Nedim asked.
“My people have been helping unfortunates such as yourself since the desert was young,” she replied. She seemed to be waiting for something, as if Nedim possessed some knowledge he had not yet recalled. Then, suddenly, many names came to his mind.
“Tricksters,” Nedim whispered to himself, unable to prevent his thinking out loud. “Demons of the desert. Shape stealers.” There had been tales told to him when another word was used, an insult when used in the wrong tone: Myriad. As the word escaped his lips, Nedim recognized the disdain in his tone but could not take it back once he spoke it; he might as well have told a cornered Rahjan that his claws weren’t sharp enough.
As he feared, her pleasant expression collapsed into fury as she fixed Nedim with her stare. “Do not trust that I won’t abandon you here, Medaran. I am aware of the stories you tell to frighten your children into obedience, but insult my heritage again at your own peril.”
“So you would kill me for a few unkind words?” Nedim asked cautiously, trying to sound more confident than he was. “How am I to know you haven’t truly come to torture me?” It was a gamble; show a little backbone and perhaps she would think him less easy prey. Of course, she could have bound or murdered him already, but he decided not to think too much about that.
The Myriad appeared to be considering Nedim’s words, and her anger subsided as she straightened herself up. “Fair enough. I offer my name, Cerese, as proof of my intentions.” He could still hear her warning tone through her gentler words, a reminder of her earlier threat.
Nedim stood up and cautiously turned away from her as he contemplated the gesture. If Cerese were as evil as the legends said, she couldn’t have truly meant him harm and not have done so already. Looking around, the two of them were standing in a desert bowl with dunes towering on all sides of them. Since he had no idea in the least were he was, he could do worse than trust someone that had already passed up the opportunity to leave him for dead. Nedim turned back to Cerese to find her also facing away from him as though distracted by something he was not yet aware of.
“Very well, Cerese. Thank you for finding me…”
“I didn’t find you,” she interrupted, still looking away. “I was waiting for you. When you stepped into the Elemented Circle and made your offering, here is where your quest led you.”
“Then you know why I have come.”
Cerese turned and started toward him. “You are here to replace that which you have lost, a wife and a daughter. They were taken from you, and you intend to take them back from someone else, no matter the cost.”
Nedim stood aghast at Cerese’s words.
When Cerese was easily close enough to reach out and touch him, she added, “But are you are prepared to actually kill to get it? You may be aware of who it is you must wrong to make your life right, but can you kill to take what it is you’re after?”
Nedim felt guilt wash over him as Cerese correctly bared his intentions. “Do the powers you serve often provide services to future murderers? What do they intend to gain by helping me?”
Cerese smiled. “You haven’t murdered anyone yet. Perhaps, with guidance, you’ll decide differently when your moment comes. If you believe that you’re prepared to kill, know that the act itself feels very different than one imagines while committing it, not to mention how it haunts you afterward.”
“So, why are you here then? Are you a guide?”
Cerese suddenly looked toward the sky, again as if noticing something, then looked sternly back at Nedim.
“My time here grows short. I offer you this choice: Command me to do for you what it is you have come here to do and swear to serve the Nameless Two for all time, or take your chances and try to fulfill your destiny yourself… alone.”
The same brilliant eyes that dazzled him when he awoke now bored into Nedim, demanding his decision then and there. Cerese betrayed nothing with her expression, leaving Nedim to make his decision alone.
Alone. Exactly as he understood he must proceed.
“I’ll take my own chances, but I thank you for the offer.”
Cerese smiled pleasantly. “Good choice.” Stepping back from Nedim, she added, “Far’sahn, traveler of worlds, and may a thousand fortunes smile upon you.” The sand at her feet ignited into a pillar of flame that consumed the Myriad in moments, and then Nedim was alone.
With a quick glance around at his surroundings and a note of the sun’s position in the sky, Nedim navigated the shortest dune to climb out of the desert bowl. When he reached the top, he couldn’t help but laugh. A tribe of desert travelers, the Shak’rahn, was camped out next to the bowl. Cerese must have known this, of course, but she let him make his choice without the all the facts.
As he approached the closest dromid rider, two people began moving to intercept him. Not wanting trouble, Nedim stopped and showed his open palms, revealing himself as someone unarmed and unthreatening. One who approached was the oldest female he had ever seen, while the other was a Vastan acting as either her guard or advisor.
“Do’meen, Nedim,” the old one grinned. “We would be the first of a thousand smiling fortunes.”

On to Part 2…